Birkat HaChamah

An illustrated explanation of why we make this blessing once every 28 years. Engaging, informative and entertaining.

Every twenty-eighth year in the springtime, Jews gather in public to recite The Blessing of the Sun--one of the rarest and least-known practices in Judaism.

“The Lord G-d is a sun and a shield.” “The Jewish people are likened to the moon.” The union between man and G-d is formed when a person makes himself a “small luminary,” a reflection of G-d.

Birchas Hachama — the Blessing of the Sun at 770 in 1981.

The Baal Shem Tov teaches that every single Jew is cherished by G-d. This is even more so during exile, when the Jewish people is “afflicted.” When one reaches out to a Jew who is distant and reveals that he, too, is an “only child” of G-d, then G-d’s kin...